


A Happy Ending

by Inori



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5156462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inori/pseuds/Inori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like all the old stories with a happy ending, heroes win the war, villains go to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Happy Ending

Three months after the project, another news caught spotlight of everyone. James Barnes, the former member of Captain’s commando team, was back as a super soldier. Captain America explained that his best friend was captured and tortured by Hydra for many years and suffered from cruel experiment. “He lost his left arm and part of his memory, but he is still the Bucky I used to know, and I’m so happy to have him back.” Said Captain to the press.   
Actually everybody in the Avengers’ team shared the joy of Captain. Unlike the Winter Solider they used to fight against, James Barnes was a charming and humorous young man. Tony Stark, who claimed to “have difficulty getting along with the 90-year-olds”, turned out to be especially fond of James. He invited James to his lab, played video games with him and even designed a brand new metal arm for him. They reached agreement on Steve about his terrible fashion taste and his out-fashioned moral standard, which made Steve frown several times. Natasha forgave him for the scar after they fought in the training room for 3 hours. Clint was glad he found someone who was equally experienced as a sniper as him, they exchanged professional views on this topic, Clint even shared his secret sneak storage with James. Thor was happy to have a new friend who could drink with him all night. Dr. Banner was a little bit nervous but still ten times kinder than the doctors he used to know, and James liked him. After their first treatment, Bruce claimed that James was the only patient in this building that cooperated without any complain. The team invited him to their movie nights, pub claw nights and many other team recreations. It was like being in a warm family, with everybody loved each other, just like their Howling Commandos 70 years before. James loved the Avengers, and enjoyed fighting side by side with Steve again. His bright and warm smile was seen every time they were caught by every camera. It was indeed a happy ending, heroes won the war, and villains went to hell.

Till that day, everything was fine.  
It was a sunny afternoon, when James walked into the living room, he saw Steve having a video call with Fury. Captain America was clearly in a bad mood, he spoke with a cold and angry voice: “Reject him. He was nothing but a liar; I will never let him see Bucky.”   
“Among the prisoners we’ve caught, he has the highest level of authority. His cooperation is important for us.”  
“I said no.” Steve interrupted impatiently, “I don’t care about your intelligence work. Bucky has suffered enough, and I’ll never let Hydra put a finger on him again.”  
James stopped on hearing this. He had hardly ever seen Steve with such a hatred look on his face, so he put his hand on Steve’s shoulder, and asked: “what’s up, Steve?”  
Before Steve could reply, Fury answered quickly: “Brock Rumlow wants to see you.”  
Steve looked so angry that James doubted he would rush to Fury’s office and punched him straight on the face in next seconds. He shrugged and asked in confuse: “Who’s that? Am I supposed to know him well?”  
Steve seemed to be pretty relieved at his question. But Fury interrupted again: “He was the leader of STRIKE, who fought with Winter Soldier for almost 20 years.”  
The smile on James’ face faded on hearing this.  
Apart from all those experiments and brainwashing, James didn’t have a very clear memory about his days in Hydra. After all, if you were frozen for most of your time, and was brainwashed every time you woke up, you couldn’t have a clear idea about your life and people around either. James never tried to remember any faces in Hydra. He knew that most of them would die before he woke up again, so he never wasted his precious time on this.   
(The only thing he could remember was that, somebody – perhaps the scientists of Hydra – kept feeding him sweets for so many years that changed his taste completely. He still remembered the terrified face of Steve when he first asked for a bag of Haribo in a supermarket. Back in the 40s, James hated all kinds of sweets including the precious chocolate in the K-rations, which he thought would erode his fighting spirit. But now, James was so addicted to sweets that he had to eat at least a bar of chocolate a day, otherwise he would be uneasy and nervous.)  
James tried hard to recall Winter Soldier’s memory about the missions, he did remember a team of special troops assisting him, but the name Rumlow was quite unfamiliar, he couldn’t remember anything even close to it.  
“I have no idea who you are talking about. But if it can help on finding Hydra, I’m totally fine meeting him.” James replied after a while, “Where is he now? In prison?”  
Fury looked at him with a strange expression, and answered: “No, he was in hospital, in SCU.”

Next morning, James visited the SCU. He stood in front of the bed, looking at the patient lying here. The man could hardly be qualified as “alive”. All his skins were badly burned and James was sure he could never recover again; both of his legs were broken; his throat was cut open with two thick pipe thrusting into it to assist him breathing. Now James doubt whether he could still speak.  
“Hi, Rumlow. I was told that you want to see me.” He approached the bed and said awkwardly. He didn’t mean to be rude, but the words sound so cold and indifferent. Rumlow was intended to smile at him, but only managed to twist the scars on his face which make him more horrible.  
“Sit.” He said in a hoarse and faint voice.  
So James sat next to the bed, and stayed in Rumlow’s vision so that he didn’t need to turn his head to look at him. Rumlow noticed this and smiled again.  
“You look better now.” Rumlow said slowly and hoarsely, speaking was too much a challenge for him, “your smile is more charming than I expected.”  
James felt a sudden heartache. They worked together for 20 years, it might be just several vague nightmares for him, but that was the best part of the life for Rumlow. Guilt overwhelmed him like a forceful tide, he apologized awkwardly: “Sorry, I – I can’t remember anything about you.”  
Rumlow smiled calmly, as if he had heard things like that for too many times. “It doesn’t matter, I’ve already got used to that.”  
Rumlow paused for a long time to regain energy to continue their conversation. James waited patiently for him. They remained silence for a long time, only the noise of life maintaining machines could be heard, which was strangely loud and annoying.  
“I have a safe house in Brooklyn, under the alias Leo Barnes.” Finally Rumlow broke the silence. He spoke quickly and calmly like confessing to the judge, “Go and get the USB drive.”   
James thought he ought to ask what was in the USB drive, but Rumlow seemed too tired to answer. So he just nodded and said goodbye to him. Before leaving the room, he stopped and offered: “I’ll come tomorrow.”  
Rumlow seemed to be shocked by this, he opened his eyes wider and remained speechless for a while, and then he smiled brightly, his amber eyes were ignited with warm flame.  
“That’s very nice of you.” He said, “Have a nice day, honey bear.”  
James felt a little bit embarrassed about the words “honey bear”, but he decided it was polite not to argue with a badly wounded man. 

It took little time for James to find the safe house of Leo Barnes. It was a typical safe house, with little furniture and the most basic necessities. James knew it wasn’t the first time he’d been in this room. Everything was quite familiar, as if it was designed exclusively for him. He found the USB drive in a drawer, with a knife and a dusty box of chocolates. James stared at the box and frowned, he knew the brand, it was one of his favorite. He doubted that Rumlow was the very person who changed his taste with countless candies and chocolates, given the fact that he’d been working together with the Winter Soldier for 20 years. All of a sudden James didn’t want anybody else to see those files before him, no matter what they were.   
There were some scans of ID file and several videos in the drive. Some were cuts from surveillance cameras, and others were from mobile phones. James randomly chose one and opened it. It seemed to be in a laboratory of Hydra. He could see those scientists and brainwashing machines that he used to be too familiar with. Clearly there was something wrong about the brainwashing process. He could hear himself cursing and roaring like a beast, trying to kill every moving creature insight with his metal hand. Then some well-equipped soldiers rushed in, with their guns pointing at him.   
“Don’t shoot, keep him alive.” One of the scientists yelled, hiding behind the bodies of dead soldiers. It was clearly an impossible order, since the Winter Soldier could easily break one’s neck with his bare hands and he wouldn’t hesitate on killing anyone. Anyway the soldiers stopped attacking and tried to find cover. Then all of a sudden someone pulled the trigger, bullet narrowly hit his forehead.   
“Listen angry bear. I don’t care who the hell or how important you are, if you kill my men, I’ll kill you.”  
It was Rumlow, who looked much younger and more energetic than he was today. He was holding a submachine gun, pointing it at Winter Soldier’s chest. James could see in his eyes that he meant every word he had said, if the Winter Soldier tried to kill his men again, he would definitely pull the trigger and empty the bullets on him.  
After a while Rumlow successfully disabled his metal arm with a Taser, and locked him back onto the chair. Scientists blamed Rumlow for trying to hurt the most precious asset of Hydra, the young leader of STRIKE didn’t pay any attention to them. He watched the brainwashing process in irony, and sneered: “At least I treat him as human being.”   
James clicked off the video and frowned. Although he had no impression about this story, he thought it was true and Rumlow wasn’t as evil as others in Hydra. Therefore he decided to watch another one, to know more about the soldier who had been working with him for the better part of his life.   
The second video was from a mobile phone. It seemed that they were in a bar, with noisy music and drunks all around. Rumlow walked totteringly into the camera and smiled in a drunken way: “Buy a drink and bill on me boys, it’s my birthday!”  
“You’re birthday is in June, boss.” Someone protested weakly, his voice was immediately overwhelmed by the loud cheer of the others. Rumlow rolled his eyes and shouted at him: “That’s none of your fucking business, Rollins. Sing the birthday song now, it’s an order.”  
The video ended in the out-of-tune birthday song, but James was still staring at the screen. This time he was able to recall a fragment of his memory. He remembered moving the complete drunken Rumlow back to his room, and the horrible smell on his shirt. He remembered the man hugging him warmly, smiling at him in a teasing way.  
“You look unhappy, honey bear.” The man studied his face and reached this obvious conclusion, “Are you angry at me because I ordered you not to do your suicide action?”  
“It’s my target.” And you ruined my mission.  
Rumlow laughed and patted his shoulder hard, he was sure it would hurt if he wasn’t a super soldier. “Yeah I did ruin your mission, to keep you from killing yourself in the explosion.” The man said, “Don’t say you can’t feel pain. You are no machine, I know you can.”  
It was a direct order that Winter Soldier couldn’t disobey, so he stayed silence, threw Rumlow onto the bed and looked at the drunken man in a way that would threaten the rest of the STRIKE team to death. But Rumlow just smiled, showing no sign of being threatened at all. Winter Soldier rolled his eyes impatiently, but was stopped by Rumlow before he turned around and left.  
“I know you don’t remember it, but,” the man paused in embarrassment, and put an ugly cupcake in his hands, “happy birthday.”

Now he could remember who Rumlow was. The toughest agent of Hydra, the fearless leader of STRIKE, and most importantly, the best partner Winter Soldier had ever had. He didn’t recognize him in the hospital because of the scars on his face, and furthermore, he only knew the man by his alias Crossbones.   
James had never thought he would see Rumlow again. The man, along with other dark memory of the Winter Soldier, was already buried deep since the day he was found in the Museum by Steve. He had learned from the news that Hydra was defeated by Captain America, Pierce was dead, and many other agents of Hydra were arrested. Never did he think about Rumlow, the only man who treated Winter Soldier as human being, not even for a single second.

James stayed motionless for a while, remorse flooded over him. His phone kept ringing inside the pocket; he dragged it out and answered carelessly: “James Barnes.”  
“It’s me, Bucky.” Steve said in low and soft voice, “I want to tell you something about Rumlow…”  
A sudden panic overwhelmed him, James interrupted impatiently: “I’m in his apartment. He cooperated and provided a lot of very important information. I’ll send you the files right now…”  
“Bucky.” Steve stopped him, suddenly James anticipated what he was about to say, and he didn’t want to hear it at all.  
“He died, Bucky, five minutes after you left.”  
In the other side of the line Steve was still talking, but all he could hear was the word “died”, like an icy sword stabbing through his heart. He remembered their last meeting, hours ago in the SCU. The man smiled in happiness and relief on hearing James’ promise of coming back and visiting him, as if that was the only important thing of his entire life, as if he finally got the happy ending he’d been longing for.

It was a beautiful sunny day. Outside there were children playing on the streets, their laughing and singing could be heard everywhere. But inside this gloomy and shabby apartment, James could hear nothing but the noise of a whole world crushing down. 

Smile at me, honey bear, I could die for that.  
He heard the man whispering, softly and lovingly, as if he was speaking with the one he loved heart and soul.

He kneeled down on the dusty floor, cried so bitterly that it hurt.


End file.
